Yes Beverages Cocktail Mixer Giveaway!

I’m giving away two 3-packs of Yes Beverages Artisan Cocktail Mixers today! Enter the giveaway below, or by clicking here. Thanks so much to Yes Beverages for donating the mixers used in this post so I could share about them with my readers!

Hello hello! Happy Thursday! I am so excited to share these amazing cocktail mixers with you guys. So excited!

But first, I need to give you a little bit of background on my cocktail history. I LOVE cocktails. Love love. But until about a year ago, I didn’t know much of anything about them. I knew what a margarita was (it comes out of a slushie-type machine, right?) and knew I didn’t like to drink hard alcohol straight, and that was about it. I would occasionally go to a restaurant and ask the bartender to make me something not too sweet, but not too strong, either. Sometimes this worked out well… and sometimes I ended up with something blue and totally fake. ? ?

So this past December I came across this book, Shake, by Eric Prum & Josh Williams. I sent a link to that along with a cocktail shaker (I unfortunately heard that the mason shaker used in the book isn’t that great) to my sister and told her that’s what I wanted for Christmas. And lo and behold, come Christmas morning I had a new cookbook to use!

The first recipe I tried from the book is still my favorite: a Rosemary Maple Bourbon Sour. It is definitely as delicious as it sounds. And I really love making the drinks, too. Pile everything in, make a mess on the counter, shake shake shake, pour, garnish, sip. So good.

I spent about a month making cocktails every weekend, then it kind of faded. Since I only like to go to the store once per week, I kind of had to plan my cocktails out like I did my meals, and it just wasn’t something I had on my mind. And plus, I often don’t know what I’m going to want to drink come cocktail time, and always having all the ingredients on hand is honestly pretty impractical (and expensive).

So one day a few weeks ago, AJ and I went to our local Farmer’s Market just down the street to grab some veggies. I passed by a new booth that I hadn’t seen there before and noticed she had some bottles of fun-colored stuff, so I stopped by to see what they were. And then my mind was blown.

The gal at the booth told me all about her cocktail mixers – how they come ready-to-mix so you don’t have to buy all the individual ingredients, how she’s perfected the recipes in her kitchen so you don’t have to worry about balanced flavors, how she uses only fresh seasonal REAL ingredients so you don’t have to stress about putting all sorts of unhealthy junk into your body. I was amazed.

I tasted a few of them and then got a bottle of the Lavender Honey, their most popular flavor. I took it home and mixed it up 1-to-1 with some dark rum and drank it right up. I was obsessed.

What I love about the Yes Beverages artisan cocktail mixers, aside from everything mentioned above, is how easy they are to create super high-quality drinks at home with literally zero fuss. Prior to these mixers, my cocktail options were limited to:

Going down to my favorite cocktail bar Sidecar and ordering drinks for about $15 a piece

Going to Whole Foods and buying all the special ingredients, chopping and mixing for 10 minutes, cleaning up, then enjoying my cocktail at home

But now? Combine mixer with spirits, shake, pour, and drink. Seriously so easy. I guess I do have to go make my way over to the Farmer’s Market to buy the mixers when I run out, but I go every couple weeks anyway, so that’s not really a big deal. And they last a lot longer in the fridge than the raw ingredients do, too!

So anyway, back to the story. I emailed Lauren (the Farmer’s Market gal, AKA cofounder of Yes Beverages) and told her how much I loved her mixers and asked if she would be okay with me sharing about them here on my blog. She said YES (har har) and we set up a tasting so I could try all the amazing flavors. I wanted to bring a bottle of each home with me, but I limited myself to just four of them:

Moscow Mule

Sriracha Margarita

Blueberry Basil

and Spiced Pear

Ask me for my favorite and I don’t think I could tell you. The most traditional one was the Moscow Mule, which is everything you’d expect from a moscow mule. Lauren doesn’t filter the ginger out, so you get an amazingly fresh ginger taste when you shake it up. Topped with some ginger beer it’s a perfect summer drink.

I got the Sriracha Margarita specifically for AJ because I thought he’d like the little bit of kick. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about it, but after mixing one up and downing it in about two seconds I’m pretty darn sold. I shared this with some friends who came over for dinner and we nearly finished the whole bottle. Jalapeno margaritas are pretty popular right now, I think, but the Sriracha takes it to a whole new level. I have a soft spot for margaritas (no longer the slushie kind, though), so I’ll definitely be keeping a bottle of this around at all times.

Blueberry Basil was my drink of choice for these photos. I just could not get over the beautiful color. While Sriracha Margarita says party time!, Blueberry Basil is the perfect drink for mixing up, taking your shoes off, and relaxing on the couch after a long day. It was really relaxing.. and just so pretty. For this drink, I mixed up the Blueberry Muffin recipe from the Yes Beverages Recipes page.

And finally, Spiced Pear (see photo at top). Spiced Pear was dangerous. When mixed up with a hefty dose of vodka, I couldn’t even taste the vodka. Not because the mixer was so strong, but just because it was so smooth. Everything melded together so perfectly I could drink it just like a soda – drink after drink after drink. So good.

Yes Beverages has a ton more mixers to try that you can order on their website. I tried a bunch of them when Lauren and I did our tasting, but I can’t wait to take my time and try them all mixed up at home. And I LOVE how the flavors are seasonal – always something new to look forward to. I can’t wait to see what she comes up with this summer!

If you’re tired of the fuss of mixing up custom cocktails at home, or you hate all the fake ingredients in traditional mixers (I’m looking at you, margarita slushie), then I really recommend giving the Yes Beverages mixers a try. If you’re local to SLO county you can get them at most south-county farmer’s markets, or you can order them online.

Lauren donated these bottles to me for trying, and I asked here if we pretty please could do a giveaway on the blog. And she, of course, said YES! So today I have two 3-packs of mixers to give away to two readers today! The giveaway will run through Thursday, June 16 (one week from today). The winners will be able to choose their mixers of choice to try with their favorite spirits. Enter the giveaway below for a chance to win!

If you make and love this recipe, be sure to share it on Instagram with #rootsfood!

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About Raquel

Raquel is a whole foods enthusiast, an avid mountain biker, and a dog lover. She works by day at Food Blogger Pro, and by night on this here website. You can contact her at any time at raquel (@) mycaliforniaroots.com.

PS! FBP just released a free ebook called The Number One Thing - it talks about the 1 thing that 31 top bloggers are focusing on in the next year. Get it here!

My favorite cocktails are anything fresh, citrusy, and gingery! I don’t like overly sweet drinks with artificial mixers, but prefer freshly squeezed/grated ingredients in my drinks. Which is why these mixers sound amaaaazing – fresh taste without the work? Yes please. Oh and honey lavender sounds like a very interesting combination I’d love to try in a drink!

GAH – these photos, Raquel. You must have spent hours on this post, and it shows! So beautiful. I wish I could have every flavor on tap all the time! Thanks so much for putting this together and inviting me to be a part of it. :)

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[…] wax eloquent-ish about them all the live long day, but Raquel did that way better than me over on this post. I’m proud to be partnering with her and a couple of other blogger buddies to do a giveaway […]